We’re really excited about some of the things Beyond the Bunker are doing in 2014 so Dan decided to go enlist the help of the only man jolly enough to convey how awesome it’s going to be. This is the absolute truth and we most definitely did not sneak into a grotto after closing time and sit in the chair.

Thanks to everyone who bought the book over the last year, we hope you dig some of the stuff that we’ll be brining out in 2014.

Looking to catch up on the adventures of Moon but couldn’t come to the Moon Launch? Don’t want to wait until the next con to get your hands on the new issue? Have a friend who likes amazing comics about sharp dressed astral bodies? Well you’re in luck because you can now mail order copies of both Moon #1 and #2 and have them delivered direct to your door anywhere in the world!

Just head to our new comicsy shop and place your order. We’ll handle the rest!

Ethically borderline central characters – Check, 70s Kung Fu Movie simplicity – Check, Coolness bordering on latent homoeroticism – Check. Must be Tarantino’s back. Since the rampaging glory and Revenge of the Jews that was Inglorious Basterds I’ve been waiting (without really thinking about it often) for the next high octane dose of the ‘Tino.

While we’re never going to see the edginess of Pulp Fiction again these films are getting broader and more fun. It looks awesome. And looking at the slightly self aware casting it’s classic Tarantino!

We’ll admit we don’t watch much TV at Beyond the Bunker (we tend to catch this stuff on DVD – which this year would’ve led to reviews of Firefly and Battlestar Galatica) but we’ll try to make sure we keep up next year as best we can. Or review DVDs we’ve seen. Or get rid of it completely. Never-the-less here’s an attempt at the Best series of the year awards 2011 based on the buzz and our own personal choices.

Denied Winner – Game of Thrones (Season 1)

According to popular buzz surrounding HBO’s blood and thunder epic Game of Thrones, featuring LOTR’s Sean Bean, Conan’s Jason Momoa and Tesco’s ad’s Mark Addy in various roles we know nothing about, it’s an absolute corker and the best thing out this year. However, because of delays in releasing the DVD – causing online bloggers all over the web to declare that they’ve been left with no choice but to pirate it to get their fix in spite of wanting to support their favourite TV programme – we haven’t seen it. But we hope to. Oh yeah.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s epic series of novels the series has an enormous following and from what we’ve heard – rightfully so. As seven families fight to control the mythical land of Westeros, political and sexual intrigue is pervasive. In all of this chaos, clear and entertaining characters are struggling to gain increasing amounts of power – through savagery, skullduggery and sexual manipulation. Sounds great.

Winner – Sherlock (Season 1)

In spite of the fact that the decision by the BBC to produce a modern day turn for the world’s most famous detective, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as the titular detective and his now unwilling partner, Watson generated some concern regarding the dumbing down of a British classic, Sherlock proved to be one of the best series released in recent years for a number of reasons.

It proved itself so slick, challenging and interesting that even die hard fans of the original Sherlock were brought on board. Initially, a three episode series, Cumberbatch’s depiction of an ostrasised and maligned genius detective being followed by a beleagured and bemused hobbled war veteran turned journalist through his first set of cases wooed audiences and made Cumberbatch a household name, previously restricted to period costume and theatre performances that while no doubt engaging failed to reach so wide an audience.

Combining assured and intelligent scriptwriting by Dr Who and (in one one case) League of Gentlemen scribes Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, BBC’s primetime production values and an award baiting turn from relative unknown Andrew Scott as Sherlock’s new found nemesis Moriarty – the game is very much afoot for Series 2.

With Season 2 starting on New Years Day on BBC1, now would be a good time to familiarise yourself with the return of the great detective in this assured, intelligent and gripping series.

Best Current Series – Walking Dead (Season 2)

Frank Darabont’s translation of Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead serialisation has been happily consistent with it’s source material. The bravery of focussing on the assembled survivors allows such a series to be created but the sense of scale that is realised – particularly in the devastation of Atlanta in the opening episode of Season 1 – gave the feel of the piece a much bigger scale than most American series. This was continued in Season 2 from the very first episode, featuring a debilitatingly tense scene involving ‘a herd’ and a plot point unexpectedly introduced from further through the comic book series.

It is a careful adaptation, using large swathes of detail from the original series – both following Sheriff Rick Grimes, his wife, child, best friend and a host of disparate survivors through a world now overrun by Zombies. But it darts and diverts from the original, allowing any devotees of the books guessing as to what is happening next an excellent and original experience. Developing its own storylines it remains rewarding both when it diverges from and converges on moments from the popular series.

The effects work is fantastic, easily on par – or beyond – work previously seen in various Zombie Movies. The presence of the Zombies is never lost, keeping tension in scenes where otherwise there may be none. This is also fuelled by the camerwork as the stark cinematography is deliberately sparse and simple, constantly making the viewer aware that empty space has the possibility of being occupied but most poignantly emphasising the isolation the central figures have found themselves in.

Effectively a survivors epic it has the added joy of the wandering undead to liven things up should the action become too leaden as it can at times in other long running series. Season 1 was only 6 Episodes long but with season 2 considerably longer it will allow central characters to develop in a way that will make the inevitable loss of them even more effective.

Epic scale narrowed to engaging character plots and the possibility of Zombies at every corner. The promise of this series based on events in the original books is potentially phenomenal and this series has to be seen.

Best Non-geek Series – Fresh Meat (Series 1)

The series follows a group of six students about to embark on the most exciting period of their lives thus far University (yawn, right?)! Away from home for the first time, on the brink of adult life, they are about to discover who they really are. From the moment they ship up as freshers at their shared house, their lives are destined to collide, overlap and run the whole gamut of appalling behaviour and terrible errors of judgement.

Sounds like every coming-of-age college series there is but this one proves itself different. The assembled characters move well out of their archetypal characteristics like students at their first university stand-up gig. Where similar series have relied on stereotypes and presumed reactions to arriving at university this one takes each individual and offers them realistic and familiar situations which they deal with in the way anyone else would. Quite badly.

The expected central figure Kingsley (Inbetweeners Joe Thomas) is sidelined pretty swiftly to share room with all his fellow housemates, in spite of a fantastic central plot involving a burdgeoning mutual attraction to fellow housemate Josie (Kimberley Nixon) which somehow always ends with them discovering the other has slept with someone else – sometimes hilariously audibly through their shared partition wall (while drunkenly arguing with each other at one point). Add to that the socially awkward Howard (Greg McHugh) who is pursued by a borderline psychotic classmate he developed a brief friendship with, straight talking hard-living Vod (the incredible Zawe Ashton) and Oregon (Charlotte Richie), desperate to be cool and terrified of being boring and you have a great mix.

But bizarrely, it’s Jack Whitehall’s character JP that walks away with the crown. A public school boy with an over inflated sense of entitlement, Whitehall manages to instill enough humanity into the prat that you do understand why the rest put up with him.

The jaunty and intelligent script bounds away through numerous scenarios, both realistic enough to be occuring but wild enough to be entertaining and the incredible cast bring it both harmoniously and raucously to life. An excellent series and well worth a look.

Most anticipated DVD – Star Wars: The Clone Wars Seasons 3 and 4

Unseen as yet and as I understand it ongoing at present – Clone Wars Season 4 is the continued influence of Star Wars on kids TV channels. Less engaging than the original 2 Dimensional seasons directed by Genndy Tartakovsky but offer more plot and development to the whole saga. With each season the CGI improves and more worlds are revealed in higher detail. Still 2 seasons behind at present however I (Steve P) have to put this on my guilty pleasures list because it expands the Star Wars Universe and is occasionally noticably created by true die hard fans who jump at the chance to develop part of the SW universe.

Most Cause for Concern – Dr Who (Season 6)

Matt Smith is an excellent Doctor, Karen Gillian is a great sidekick and we know that Steven Moffat is a great writer. However, somehow, indiscernably, the last series of Dr Who has lacked the pathos and light hearted touch that previously won it so many fans. No doubt a deliberate intention by Moffat to darken and broaden the Who, it appears to be beginning to lose it’s grip on plot this season. In spite of an introduction of The Silence, the scale and adventure wasn’t as bedded down in character and engaging emotional situations as it has been in previous seasons.

Upping the sci-fi quota, scripts have become slightly convoluted and less involving as a result. Matt Smith, while entertaining as the lithe and slightly dotty Doctor lacks the strength that the more seasoned Doctors had and while, initially, the scripts played with this they have now put perhaps too much emphasis on a young actor to imbue wonder and concern at every turn every time a ‘tree whispers’. Somehow less surprising than previous series, the science babble has gone up, the lunatic and dastardly alien beings have gone down and the geek wish fulfilment is beginning to become too visible.

I have loved Doctor Who but I am concerned that continuity is beginning to fray and that it needs a rest between seasons before it collapses under it’s own weight of expectation. Still excellent, it is however less excellent than it was, seemingly relying overly on emotional resolutions to tie up convoluted plots and slightly unoriginal concepts.

However, still excellent. Hopefully Moffat et al will see the slight error in their ways and get behind an excellent Season 7. God knows the BBC wants it!!

After a long year in which a lot has happened and I’ve tested the boundaries of everyone’s patience waiting for me to sort my life out, it’s Christmas that’s given me a little perspective. For the last six weeks I’ve worked in the basement of Selfridge’s as one of a staff employed in one of the foremost Santa’s grottos in the world and it has reminded me of everything I wanted to achieve when I’d lie on my front in the living room, drawing on computer paper with a biro.

In the last six weeks I’ve spoken to a lot of kids. Some too small to talk, some too old to believe any more. But in the moment where you catch their eye and watch their imagination illuminate, even for a moment, it’s like fireworks for any soul watching. In a single moment, a child’s capacity to not question and enjoy and embrace is the cleverest thing any single person can do in their entire lifetime. As we get older we talk ourselves out of it and I finally see the madness in it.

At some point – as happens to so many as they grow older – they lose the thing that made them want to be the thing they strive to be as an adult, while always searching for the same feeling they had when they were a child. In many ways, I’ve been railing against the thing that would offer me a chance at succeeding as an artist. I forgot to enjoy it.

So here, as Christmas Eve turns into Christmas Day, I realise how they do it. The Alan Moores, the Mike Mignolas, the Speilbergs and the Jim Hensons. At the heart of every commercial choice is the child they once were. Nothing sells better than dreams because they’re more valuable than anything real, whether they come true or not and they should never be let go of. But it has to be sincere and heartfelt. If you ever need a more perfect example it’s here – in one of my favourite movies of all time, and one me and my girlfriend watch to know it’s Christmas. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I’ll let the Frog take it from here…

Since we do like to snap a picture or two on our big Moony travels, we thought it would be cool to share our top 5 photos from the past year’s adventures. Enjoy!

5. Moon and Ray Live!

This was taken at the launch party for Moon #1. Actor Lee Ravitz is the artistic basis for Moon’s stoic partner Ray Barton and he was good enough to take a few minutes to help guide Moon through the first instalment of their adventures. I can’t help but feel that reading your own comic is kind of cheating, but what the hey. (photo my Imogen Banks)

4. The Saddest Moon That Ever There Was

When we attended the MCM Expo this past October, we brought the Moon head with us and encouraged fans of the comic to put it on and pose for photos. Some were extremely willing, some were scarily willing, some (like this poor chap) were rather less so. He remains the most patient man I have ever met.

3. Moon Has Arrived!

This photo may not seem like much, but to Steve and I it’s one of the most important ones we’ve ever taken. This is issue 1 of our first comic, freshly opened one cold March morning, along with the confirmation for our first convention appearance. The 200 first edition copies seen in this photo sold out within a few weeks and have gone on to become minor collectors items. We even heard of one fan who had a copy framed in her baby’s nursery!

2. Moon Cub

We’ve had quite a few sketches of Moon drawn for us by other creators over the last year. In all honesty, I could have posted any of them as they’re universally wonderful but this sketch of Moon as a lion cub by Matt from Moo & Keo is particularly great due to it’s total silliness. It’s also about as close as we’ll ever get to cracking the cutesy market.

1. Beyond The Bunker Launce Night

It seems silly to post a picture of ourselves (albeit with other people) in this list, but it’s the nature of those people that makes this one worthy of sharing. From left to right in the middle we have Alistair Reith (artistic basis for Shades Rodriguez) Drummond Bowskill (without whom we would have struggled to put the night on at all) and Lee Ravitz (artistic basis for Ray Barton). The BTB launch night was an absolute tonne of fun to put on and the number of people that turned up was simply staggering for a new indy comic. We intend to do the same again for Moon #2 but sadly we have to find a new venue as the old one won’t have us back after we blew up their sound system and woke up the neighbours. It was about as appropriate a way to kick off this grand adventure as I can think of and this photo pretty much encapsulates that feeling for me. Oh, Steve and I are in there too, but you don’t have to look at us if you don’t want to.

Few things have gone down in notoriety like the Star Wars Holiday Special. Almost unanimously revered as the worst thing ever brought out of the Star Wars canon it was, I think, a sincere attempt to bring Star Wars to Christmas.

Dodging any religious incorrectness, Wookees celebrate Life Day on Kashyyk. watch Harrison Ford struggle manfully to maintain cheer, hope that Uncle Itchy doesn’t beat little cousin Lumpy in front of the cameras. In between the ludicrous schmaltz there is some decent action sequences and if you like the idea of seeing extra Han Solo / Chewbacca footage, Carrie Fisher singing and some season friendly chop socky against Imperial humbuggers then take a look. There’s even a bit of Jefferson Starship. Through the fact that it’s essentially a day in the life of a Wookee family (including a geriatric Wookee getting his jollies watching dancing girls in a hair dryer). Brilliant!

We here at Beyond the Bunker wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

The festive season is right around the corner and we at the Bunker are not the kind of people to shy away from a good celebration. As a special thank you to all of our readers, we are going to be running 2 whole weeks of special end of year content! That’s one new post, every day for the next 2 weeks and culminating in something very special indeed.

20th-24th – BTB Top 5s! We look back on 12 months of Beyond the Bunker and give you some choice cuts from the many articles, photos and videos that we’ve covered since January.

25th – Steve once again brings us a very special Christmas Practitioners article. You can read last year’s article on Grant Morrison by clicking here, this year: Alan Moore!

26th-1st – The BTB Awards 2011. We present our picks for the top films, games and comics of the last year. Eat some turkey, jump on the comments section and join the debate.

2nd – The first Monday of the new year is also the first Moonday of the new year. If you are a fan of the Moon comic then you do NOT want to miss dropping by the site for a major update on Moon #21

That’s your schedule for Christmas at the Bunker. If you find yourself enjoying it, please take the time to share the site with your friends. So long as you keep reading, we’ll keep posting.

‘As you climb the ladder of success – make sure it’s leaning against the right wall.’

Kabbala

Only it wasn’t. It was an ad for the kabbala centre in Stratford. It’s rare you see words of wisdom on a wall in the London underground. Given that I stood at a three arm width distance from the ad taking a photo of it on my I-phone at the base of the escalators in Bond street with Oxford street shoppers, disgruntled office workers and less harried Westminster media types and commuters changing to the central line trying to pass me means it didn’t inspire an intelligent response, but it did give me my starting point for the first diary of an artist blog here on BTB.

‘Blogging is not writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.’

Elliot Gould, Contagion (2011

I’d been struggling. I feel like an ongoing diary at undecided intervals – when something interesting happens – might be cool and helpful to others that come up behind us. Whether it’d be a diary on how not to do it is another matter and remains to be seen. At a recent con (thoughtbubble) much was discussed about the likelihood of the blog ever seeing the light of day. The problems facing the project were multiple…,

Firstly, time. Time is not my friend when it comes to these things. This is something I’ve since conquered slightly by discovering how to use an I-phone properly. It’s a common problem, particularly for artists- who need a zen like calm and paper and pens to be able to complete the work. But that is definitely coming up in a future blog so I’ll leave that until I have more ….(ahem).
Secondly, what would it be about. In spite a predilection for the use of the letter ‘I’ in my sentences, specifically at the beginning – I struggled to think of a reason to write this. What was the angle on this one. I don’t even tweet. If I was going to take a crack at this it was fairly obvious which one to go for. I’m going to write about the difficulties of getting started as an artist. Which brings me onto my next point.
What if I fail? Writing on a weekly basis about not working, living on beans and borrowing other people’s pens might make great reading. Frankly, for the sake of this blog I hope things don’t take off too quickly. However, in the real world – should beyond the bunker start to sell moon in their thousands to syndication and distribution around the world then screw the blog. I hope by then I’ll have suffered enough to make it a happy resolution for anyone who reads.
Fourthly, who cares? Guess we’ll just have to find out. If no one reads it that’s alright. I’d happily sit alone in a room talking about myself and my view on the world, marvelling at my own echo. But it’d be great if someone wants to take a look every once in a while. I’ll try to make sure it’s as entertaining as possible. Given my capacity for finding odd ways to achieve simple things and the fact that we write a comic book about a man with a moon head and my partner Dan is an ex stand up I’m pretty sure we can offer up some entertaining moments from cons all over the country. Hopefully, one day the world!!

So, to the basics of the blog – my name is Steve Penfold and I’m an artist (sort of). I hope to work with some of the greatest companies in the world and develop new and old characters in the pages of famous comic books. I run a website and comic company with Dan Thompson (writer) with whom I’ve developed a title involving the Moon dropping out of the sky in the early hours of the morning, putting on a suit, taking out a gun and fighting ridiculous crime. We think it could be quite popular. Only, to bring you back to the original quote at the top of the page, I’m not only an artist. To bring you up to speed – I am 31, I’ve accidentally ended up living with my Mum and Dad (again), have somehow found myself working as an actor for 5 years and am currently dressed as Santa Claus in a basement of a famous Oxford street department store. So not quite going to plan. My beautiful, adventurous, sexy, girlfriend lives on the other side of London to my computer and equipment. I plan, as promised, to make 5 short films in the next 6 -8 months based on a script by Samuel Lewis and have 3 issues of Fallen Heroes and 5 issues of Moon to complete (one currently on it’s way). At this stage I have no idea how to get into a studio and I’ll be unemployed as of Christmas Day. What will our hero do? Read on to find out… (honestly, I don’t know how this is going to work out so it’ll be interesting for all of us)

My current place of work - lovely and impressive but sadly not a comic book company or artists studio

With the upcoming Kablam! Comicon in London I discovered whilst rolling through the list of legends that no less than 15 people intended to appear in ‘The Practitioners’ are due to appear there. So over the next… um …. 15 weeks – one will be posted each Tuesday until the big weekend. Excelsior!!

All Star Superman 6 (DC, 2006)

Grant Morrison is a scottish comic book writer and playwright born 31 January 1960 who harnesses and embraces the full power of pseudo-science, age old magic and high end zen heavy weaponry in the pursuit of perfect storytelling in comic books, drawing on a bewildering array of sources to bring forth the borderline lunatic and the emotionally real through storytelling as broadly wild as Frankenstein tearing apart a future-human/insectoid master race three billion years in our future at the end days of Planet Earth or permitting James ‘Wolverine’ Logan a respite as he muses at a pin-up girl above the urinals in the Hellfire Club has ‘got the same eyes as that girl in Arnhem Land, 1943.’

All Star Superman

Never scared of the poignant or the difficult Morrison has the canny knack of shifting seamlessly from the scientific explanation of a Voyager Titan mentally preparing to be launched into deep space for centuries in All Star Superman to the very real failure of Scott Summers to retain his marriage in the wake of post traumatic stress he is unable to express in New X-Men. It his acknowledgment of the need to ground – at least to the degree required for a readers’ mind if not in real terms – absurd statements and events with less abstract and more concise human situations and scenarios, underpinning everything with realistic and recognisable reactions.

He recognises, as all great writers perhaps do – no matter how many stars and space cannons are exploding around the main characters – that it is the individual humanity carefully identified by the writer that each character demonstrates that pins the story to the ground and allows it to resonate with the reader. He understands, in the same way that every great writer in any medium did, that if a magical Tempest circles about a Human soul its abstract nature can only be effectively communicated through the soul through means it retains – not simply through the abstract idea of the wind itself. As such Morrison reminds himself to allow his characters to slap their heads in disbelief at his own words if it is in their nature but to allow them to take it in their stride if it is not. It is in these reactions as Lex Luthor remains steadfastly oblivious to the possibility that Clark Kent has saved him as a prison riot rages around them in All Star Superman – assuming, naturally, that he has the situation well under control when in fact Kent continues to use an array of powers beyond his notice to ease his passage and even save him from a blundering Parasite. Kent remaining true to the honest and unassuming character of Superman to great comic effect.

Arcadia Byron of the Invisibles (Vertigo)

Morrison’s first published works were Gideon Stargrave for the brilliantly titled Near Myths in 1978 at the age of 17. Soon followed Captain Clyde, an out of work superhero for the Govan Press, a local newspaper in Glasgow, plus various issues of DC Thomson’s Starblazer, the sister title to the companies Commando title and the New Adventures of Hitler. He spent much of the early 80s touring with his band The Mixers, putting out the odd Starblazer and Zoids strip for DC Thomson.

In 1982 he submitted a proposal for a storyline involving the Justice League of America and Jack Kirby’s New Gods entitled Second Coming to DC. It was dismissed but his fascination of the New Gods no doubt formed the skeleton of the enormous Final Crisis saga in which Darkseid launches armageddon on an unsuspecting world in a second age of the New Gods using Earth and its inhabitants as hosts and demonic incubators. His desire to write DC’s primary superhero group was no doubt sated with his long run on JLA in 1996 to revamp the team and bring it up to date which he pulled off with Rock of Ages, Earth 2 and World War 3 (in no particular order).

At every stage he proved time and time again that he expanded the material handed to him – writing for 2000AD with Big Dave, Future Shocks and the unusually superhuman for 2000AD – Zenith under his wing before his tenure at DC.

The Filth with Grant Morrison and Gary Erskine (2003)

Upon crossing the Atlantic he demonstrated immediately his capacity for reinventing fringe characters and enhancing them beyond the original idea – taking the near unknown fringe character Animal Man and not only imbuing his character with the real reactions of a man who could channel the powers and thoughts of animals nearby to him but forced him to look through the fourth wall at the reader – breaking the indefinable rules of the medium in the process to brilliant effect.

Morrison is known for treating mainstream established titles in the same way as fringe titles and this has earned him a status as the great re-inventor in Modern comics. He was the man to make Scott Summer’s cool again as he took hold of the X-men universe and rang the life out of it – a process he tried to make un-reconnable – Killing 16 Million Mutants and giving Professor Xavier an unborn, evil sister who returns as a mind slug and unleashes the Shi’ar navy all over the mansion. Introducing a cavalcade of new Mutants some as hilariously and poignantly useless as ‘Beaky’ the featherless, beaked bird boy who batters in the head of the newly uber-feline and faux gay Beast. Jean Grey dies but for once is given no reason to return – as psychic hyper-bitch and new headmistress of Xavier’s Emma Frost sways Scott Summer’s exhausted heart, filling the emotional vacancy usually left by Phoenix every time she summarily carks it. Magneto is beheaded after destroying half of Manhattan and Xavier’s approaches an actual curriculum and focusses on its students for the first time in its history.

Jean and the Beast (New X-Men, 2002)

Morrison often – whether intentionally or not – represents the discussion boards and blogs of the fans – testing theories that are discussed hypothetically on public pages that no one expected to see them on. Batman is killed and returned and given a son in Morrison’s watch. Jason Todd effectively returns breaking the almighty unwritten rule of comic books – partly you suspect out of sheer bloody mindedness. Morrison finally being characteristically brave to investigate the reality of Dick Grayson under the cowl.

Dick Grayson as Batman (Batman, 2009)

The content of his independent titles have become mainstream – for good or ill – leaving many readers of Final Crisis utterly confused as to what was taking place – an abstract Superman tale in which he passes through multiverses in order to combat an abstract thought form made real in storytelling in an ephemeral world populated by reality vampires via a limbo championed by an indifferent Woody Allen-alike in a jesters outfit in order to save Lois Lane in between her penultimate and final heartbeat borders on the lunatic – but is incredibly detailed and worth the three reads it takes to fully grasp the deliberately overlapping realities thrown at it.

Morrison clearly found a like mind in penciller Frank Quitely, bringing to life the inner workings of Professor X’s mind in New X-Men, the gnarled and diseased but lithely libidoed geriatric in Lust for Life from Jamie Delano’s 2020 Visions (Speakeasy comics, 2005), scraping by each other by two volumes of the Authority – Morrison on Volume 4 with Gene Ha and Quitely on Volume 2 with Mark Millar, empowered the new JLA with a little much-needed modern sheen in the book of the same name in the early naughties and reinvented the greatest super hero of them all in All-Star Superman.

But it was WE-3, the story of three prototype ‘animal weapons’ as they flee the project that ‘enhanced’ them encapsulates the creative partnership. Morrison was meticulous as ever with his descriptions and insisted on consistent and protracted revisions of minute details from Quitely in order to produce a work of rare and fine quality. This certainly was achieved as it was released via Vertigo imprint in 2004 to public and critical acclaim. Morrison’s subtlety and nuance of character supplied each of the fleeing and desperate central characters; a rabbit; a cat and a dog a bewilderingly believable character each recognisable as an individual and the drives and psychology of the animal in question. Morrison’s capacity for invention supplied the narrative with a relatively basic speech pattern simulator for each of the animals allowing them to emote through limited cognitive language in a way not human but beyond its species. The effect is a dizzying, gripping and poignant story of extreme science inflicting havoc and chaos on three innocents’ lives – each reacting in their own very specific way. In many ways WE3 is exceptional and as near perfect as a comic book can get because it uses – perhaps most transparently and as such to best effect – Morrison’s greatest creative methodology – to recognise inherent and recognisable characteristics in vulnerable and capable beings and then inflict seven hells of pseudo lunacy on them – in whatever form seems most fun!